Saturday, April 4, 2015

Je Suis Avijit Roy. Je Suis Raif Badawi. Je suis ...

Blogging has become a dangerous profession in Bangladesh. In February, a Bangladeshi-American computer engineer and founder of the secularist website Mukto-Mona, Avijit Roy, was hacked to death in a Dhaka street. Then this week, an atheist blogger named Washiqur Rahman was murdered in a similarly bloody attack. Both were killed for their views on religion.

We roll our eyes at the barbarism of fundamentalist societies around the world but it's a thin, impermanent line between the Sauid government that lashes Raif Badawi, the assailants that hacked Mr. Roy to death in Bangladesh, and the theocrats here in the U.S. that would make church-going mandatory, if they could get away with it.

And they're perilously close to being able to get away with it. Not one domino fall away, but maybe only two or three. Imagine: Hillary Clinton drops the ball, does something stupid at the wrong time, and it opens the door to a Ted Cruz, or a Mike Pence, winning the Presidency. RBG's health fails a year later and we get Ted Cruz nominee on the Supreme Court with Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts. How safe is secular government then?